The Seal
How Next Up scores athletes
Four numbers, one promise
Every athlete on Next Up carries four numbers. Here is exactly what they mean. No black box, no mystery.
SPORT (half of everything). How you perform, measured against athletes like you: same sport, same level, same position or event. A Sport score of 90 means you are near the top of your comparable group. We never compare a gymnast to a sprinter. The game comes first, which is why Sport is half the score. Sport only moves on records that carry receipts; a stat you post with nothing behind it shows on your page but does not move the number.
REACH (a quarter). How far your name travels, counted in people and coverage. Before your first drop it is built from what you tell us and can link: your level of competition, the press that has covered you, the deals you already have, the size of the community around your school or club. After your first drop it adds four facts from the platform, all of them counts of people: how many distinct people hold your cards, what share of an edition found a holder, how many of them still hold ninety days later, and how many came back for a second card. Prices, how fast anything sold, and what anyone paid are never part of Reach. It measures who is paying attention, not what they spent.
SOCIAL (a quarter). Your community's energy, not its size. Engagement, growth, and consistency matter more than raw follower counts. Connect your handles so we can read them; an unconnected handle counts for nothing, and until you connect one the score reads as estimated.
NEXT UP (the composite). Sport × 50% + Reach × 25% + Social × 25%. When a score has nothing behind it yet, the other two carry the weight, so a new athlete with a Sport score and a Social score is rated on those alone until Reach has something to measure. The composite can never be higher than your best single score. It is on your card at the moment it is minted, and it keeps living on your page as your career goes on.
TREND. The arrow beside the score shows how the composite has moved over the last thirty days: up, down, or level, with the size of the move. It is a record of what has already happened, not a forecast.
Why your card's number and your page's number can differ
A card carries your score as it stood at the moment it was minted, the way a rookie card carries a rookie season. Your page always shows today's score. Both are true. They answer different questions.
Confidence: how we know the numbers are real
Next to every Seal you will see a Confidence level. It does not judge the athlete. It grades the receipts behind their stats.
VERIFIED: backed by an official source: league results, sanctioned meets, published box scores.
STRONG: backed by evidence: video of the moment, scoreboard photos, results documents, press coverage.
COMMUNITY: backed by people who were there: coaches, officials, scorekeepers. Confirmation from the other team counts extra, because your opponent has no reason to inflate you.
PROVISIONAL: the starting line. Every legend starts unverified. It means “new here,” never “not real.”
The rule that keeps everyone honest: your story is yours to tell. Post any stat, tell any moment. But only verified stats can move your Sport score, and the size of your editions follows your Sport score. Your story is yours to tell. Your supply is earned with receipts. Nobody can game their way to a bigger drop, which protects every athlete who earned theirs.
Raising your Confidence: the receipts playbook
- Link the record. If your league, meet, or tournament publishes results anywhere online, link them to your stat. Official sources are instant top-tier confidence.
- Capture the moment. Scoreboard photo before you celebrate. The clip from your teammate's phone. The local paper's writeup. Attach them to the stat they prove; we fingerprint every file so it can never be quietly altered.
- Ask the people who saw it. Your coach, the scorekeeper, the official: attestations from people at the event build Community confidence. And here is the move most athletes miss: ask the opposing coach. Confirmation from the other side is the strongest voucher there is. They have zero reason to inflate you.
- Be consistent. Real careers have great days and off days. Post the whole season. The pattern of a real season is itself evidence.
- When in doubt, over-document. Receipts you attach today are what your Sport score is built from tomorrow.
Confidence never goes down for asking questions, having an off game, or being new. It grows with evidence, and it belongs to you.
The Seal describes the athlete. It does not set the price of a card, predict it, or promise anything about it. Athletes set their own prices, and what a card is worth on the secondary market is decided by the people buying and selling it.